Today's News

The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail has been working for two years with federal officials on a proposal to designate the trail region’s 19 counties, four cities and more than 50 towns) as a National Heritage Area.
The City of Galax and Carroll and Grayson Counties are in The Crooked Road region, and there are several local music venues on the trail, like the Rex Theater and the Blue Ridge Music Center; as well as events such as the upcoming Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention.

RICHMOND — FEMA has approved federal disaster assistance for Virginia to help Carroll County and 61 other local governments and the state recover from the severe storms and straight-line winds on June 29-July 1.
Governor Bob McDonnell requested federal aid through FEMA’s Public Assistance program, which reimburses local and state governments on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of damaged facilities.

HILLSVILLE — Typically, the only cost to a locality that asks the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police for hiring help amounts to a meal for the advisory panel, according to a local official who has served on one.
Galax Police Chief Rick Clark, who is president of the state chiefs’ association, has served on the kind of advisory panels that Hillsville Town Council members discussed at their meeting July 23.

HILLSVILLE — People making jack-o-lanterns this fall may end up carving pumpkins from Southwestern Virginia, due to the drought disrupting crops over much of the United States, according to information from state agriculture officials.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that nearly 1,300 counties, many of them in the grain-producing Midwest, have declared disasters. Meanwhile, a number of severe thunderstorms have caused their own brand of damage, but they also brought rain totals up for the Twin Counties.

After several falls that resulted in two major surgeries, Norma Jean Carico found the solution to prevent her from losing her balance.
She trained her 2-year-old pit bull, Peanut, to become her assistance dog.
Peanut is the love of her life. In fact, a necklace around her neck with Peanut’s picture on it is engraved with “True Unconditional Love.”

Virginia’s U.S. Senate candidates wasted little time igniting partisan fireworks in their first debate of the 2012 campaign season, setting the tone for a contentious contest in one of the country’s key political battlegrounds.
Republican George Allen and Democrat Tim Kaine argued over tax and budget policies and accused each other of being excessively partisan during their clash at the Virginia Bar Association’s annual summer meeting last weekend.

Republican Mitt Romney has pulled into a dead heat with President Barack Obama in the battlegound state of Virginia, according to a new statewide poll released last week.
Romney and Obama are tied at 44 percent in a survey conducted by Quinnipiac University. Obama led Romney by 5 percentage points in a June 7 Quinnipiac poll and by 8 points in a March survey.

HILLSVILLE — Carroll deputies and a Virginia State Police canine unit quickly located a suspect in an Orchard Gap breaking and entering Monday, leading to charges against a 37-year-old Cana man, according to Sheriff J.B. Gardner.
Deputies received a report at 8:22 a.m. from an unspecified property owner that someone had broken into his home while he was away, according to the deputies.

RICHMOND — Carroll County is on the list of localities that could be reimbursed by the federal government for costs associated with the severe storms of June 29 through July 1, according to the governor’s office.
State officials said Monday that Gov. Bob McDonnell requested the financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Virginia and for 59 localities affected by the “derecho” storms.